To help Illinois forward Michael Finke bust out of a shooting slump, teammate Malcolm Hill got a little upset with him.

"I was always telling him to keep shooting the ball," Hill said Wednesday. "I've been getting mad at him lately for passing up shots."

Finke not only took shots, he made them.

The redshirt freshman from Champaign scored 17 points, including 5-of-7 3-point shooting, to help Illinois roll to an 85-52 victory against Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. He was 6 of 10 overall from the field.

Finke was 1 of 13 over the previous four games and 0-for-10 on 3-pointers. He was 6 of 30 on 3s in the previous 12 games. He said his mechanics didn't change and the slump was just a matter of mental focus and confidence.

"My teammates, Coach (John) Groce, all the coaches, they have been telling me to keep shooting, have confidence in it, and that's what I had to keep doing," Finke said. "At practice, I have been hitting my shots and getting extra shots up. And then it's all mental and having confidence in it. So when that first one went in, it felt good and I kept making a few more."

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The 17 points were the most Finke has scored against a Big Ten opponent and the most in any game since scoring 24 against Western Carolina on Dec. 5.

"Michael is pretty tough," Groce said. "Obviously the shot numbers show up on the stat sheet. But he has been doing some of those things for a while, and it was good to see the basketball going in for him."

First-day jitters? With an 89-72 victory against Rutgers in Wednesday's other first-round game, 11th-seeded Nebraska advanced to play No. 6 seed Wisconsin on Thursday.

"It's Greg Gard's first day on the job," Nebraska coach Tim Miles said, joking about the Badgers coach, newly promoted from interim status. "I'm sure he'll be nervous. We'll try to take advantage of that."

Jordan's future: Rutgers' first-round exit ended a brutal season in which the Scarlet Knights went 1-17 in the Big Ten and 7-25 overall. They had only nine healthy scholarship players.

Coach Eddie Jordan declined to speculate on his job security.

"I'm not commenting on my future," he said. "We've had growing pains. Growing pains hopefully lead to positive gains for the future."